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Putting the Evil in GeniusesThis week, Andrew and Rob preview the ESL One Cologne CSGO tournament with special guest Joe Wong from Team Liquid, react in shock to Evil Geniuses' post-International roster switch, and enjoy a wild series from StarCraft's Jaedong.

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Regarding the EG transfer stuff. I think DOTA teams are in this kind of interesting place where they are functionally a bit like a cross between a sports team and a rock band. And so roster shuffles often turn into these emotionally charged events as people often develop affinities for particular players over the teams themselves.

I think Andrew is right that it is probably a good thing for these teams to be much more cold and calculating about their rosters. The interesting thing though is that PPD made a blog post today stating his decision making, and it looks to me at least like the exact opposite of that. Aui's performance for EG was admittedly excellent, but when it comes down to it there were certain personality traits PPD didn't like about Aui, and Fear and RTZ were great buds, so they made the decision based on social standings. I also find it slightly ironic that they decided RTZ was easier to get along with since he's been known to rage kinda hard during losses. I can definitely potentially see this lineup of EG looking really strong until they hit their first unexpected loss at a major LAN event, and then falling apart in spectacular fashion (in the style of Brazil at any recent World Cup).

Whatever else you feel about it, it will definitely be interesting to watch!

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[...] PPD made a blog post today stating his decision making, and it looks to me at least like the exact opposite of that. Aui's performance for EG was admittedly excellent, but when it comes down to it there were certain personality traits PPD didn't like about Aui, and Fear and RTZ were great buds, so they made the decision based on social standings.

That's interesting. I started to wonder about PPDs relationship with Aui when he was on Twitter basically rubbing Aui's face in it. Now he's claiming the account was hacked and everything but, well, that's what you say after you screw up on social media. PPD's blog post is an eye-opening read, though.

I get why PPD would feel this way. It sucks working with people who make life harder and more stressful, even if they're really competent. I can understand wanting to remove that from you team, especially if someone is really proving to be clubhouse poison. At the same time, when you have a championship-winning team, are feelings and happiness the most important thing? To paraphrase Don Draper, that's what the money is for.

Side note: if you haven't seen it, you should check out The Bronx Is Burning, the miniseries ESPN made about the '77 Yankees. What I love is that it's a really subversive sports story, and probably a more honest one. You have this team full of clashing personalities and coaches. Bitter rivalries, an arrogant manager and owner that can't stand each other, sniping in the press... and you keep expecting the team to come together to form a united front and go win a championship.

But they never do. They hate each other on the way to the World Series, and they hate each other afterwards. But the point is that the friction itself was the price of having that particular version of a great baseball team. And it got me thinking about how often we like stories about how, if only everyone worked together and respected each other's strengths, everyone would be the best versions of themselves. Well, in sports, maybe that's not the case. Sometimes you have to choose between winning or working with people you like.

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Yeah I certainly don't have any special insight into whether it makes more sense to prioritize social cohesion (or, to use the buzz word that appeared in a lot of those soft focus bios they ran during TI, "unity") over competency at the game. I guess the correct, and boring, answer is "it depends".

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll be sure to check it out. I love a good sports doc!

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@Badfinger Haha I'm a "living language" type. I know the real definition of "begs the question" but it's never used that way anymore. And thanks for the links! I wasn't aware of that calendar, and that will be really helpful.

Re Aui: Yeah, I didn't really like what I was reading from PPD there. There's a telling moment where he says basically "I prefered having fun getting 3rd place to being stressed out and winning." Which I personally deeply understand, but I'm not sure that's what I want to hear out of the leaders of teams I cheer for.

IT also highlights something interesting about the esports pay structure. You're not really salaried in the same way a sports star would be. I believe most of their earnings come from winning tournaments. So as long as you're making plenty of money getting third place (and your sponsors are still relatively happy with your results) while living the dream pro-gamer life with your friends...is there much pressure to push yourself the extra mile to get 1st?

This post from PPD was basically the exact opposite of what I wanted to hear. You're so right, sclpls. This read to me like "I just wanna hang with my bros..." and that's always my fear with North American esports organizations.

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Rob I think I'm picking up what you're putting down, but I also think I disagree with you. Baseball is such a weird sport, in that everything is individualized. It was my first and still highest sports love, but man it's such a strange thing. Almost no other team disciplines can be measured the same way. The hitter in front of you doesn't have to be your friend. He doesn't have to communicate with you. If he hits the ball damn hard, and you do as well, you're both doing your job. If he hates you, or today's starting pitcher, he's still going to try to hit the ball as hard as he can, and make every defensive play.

I see LoMas especially as closer to a basketball team, or maybe specifically a football offensive line. If you have chemistry issues, they can maybe be overcome with overwhelming superior talent on the basketball court, but one bad egg can spoil the bunch. Doubly so for an offensive line. They (from the outside looking in) seem to be one of the closest knit groups in sports. Unlike baseball or basketball, so much of what they do is group-based training and communication. That's not to say there aren't team drills, but a basketball player can practice free throws for as long as they want to spur individualized improvement, where a lineman can't practice adjusting blocking assignments on their own.

You probably have, and I have, played enough ranked or full team LoMa games to know that even at our casual old guy level it's better to go along willingly with a really terrible idea than to not walk headlong into certain doom. All it takes is for one voice out of five to say "no" to completely sink a team. On top of that, so many of these teams live together, and train together. I can imagine team chemistry and cohesion matters quite a lot in the extracurricular even if it doesn't come match day.

The other obvious part of this that differs from sports, and frankly probably from other gaming teams, is that the players made this decision. The team manager issued a statement that basically says "I'm staying out of this". Still, ppd makes the case that Arteezy is an elite talent, it allows greater flexibility for the team going forward, and it is possibly the best strategic move overall for EG. The only way to know for sure is to wait and see, like every other controversial roster move.

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Of the top 30 highest earning esports athletes in history, 29 of them are Dota 2 players. Of those 29, i'm pretty sure ~23 of them weren't there until after TI5. In a couple of years there will be dozens of millionaires playing Dota 2 professionally. That means lawyers and contracts and not kicking players over bad feelings and then shitting on them in dank meme blogs.

It'll be interesting to see what money will do to Dota 2.

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That's interesting. I started to wonder about PPDs relationship with Aui when he was on Twitter basically rubbing Aui's face in it. Now he's claiming the account was hacked and everything but, well, that's what you say after you screw up on social media.

His account was hacked along with a bunch of other pros. The guy who hacked it was offering to follow-back people who followed certain accounts, It had nothing to do with Aui. How did he screw up on social media?

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In ppd's defense, his twitch, twitter & snapchat accounts were all hacked. Against ppd is that super rude tweet from him about the messy shuffle, that is still up on his twitter. He also tweeted that his blog post was too emotional, but he stands by it. I'm super impressed by Aui's restraint in this situation.

I think Charlie, EG's manager, did as much as he could to say that he's disappointed in this decision but that his hands are tied and ultimately he works for the organization, and that he loves Aui_2000.

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The other obvious part of this that differs from sports, and frankly probably from other gaming teams, is that the players made this decision. The team manager issued a statement that basically says "I'm staying out of this". Still, ppd makes the case that Arteezy is an elite talent, it allows greater flexibility for the team going forward, and it is possibly the best strategic move overall for EG. The only way to know for sure is to wait and see, like every other controversial roster move.

The bigger issue is in traditional sports, the team/organization is the one that will break the news usually in a timely manner so that rampant speculation on social media takes over. From what I can gather the initial news was broken on aui's twitter, and then there was no timely official confirmation.

Also the terms used in a traditional sport generally soften the blow regarding roster moves. The term "kicked" engenders negative feelings towards the player. In a more traditional sport a euphemism like "mutually agreed to part ways" or a softer term like "released" would be more likely to be used- and would thus not likely. It's all semantics, but it in general tends to lend an air of professionalism in the context of roster moves (covering up any sort of underlying ill-will) and generally keeps both parties from going down the rabbit hole of name calling/publicly rationalizing/etc. EG probably would have been better off just releasing a statement that they don't comment on the reason for player/personnel changes.

In the end its goes back to a discussion they had on the Idle Thumbs podcast last week about how none of these guys are media trained. I know teams have the teams proper, coaches, and managers, but maybe its time they start thinking about employing a proper public relations rep who can handle the passage of important new related to teams in a timely and professional manner.

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Another great show. That intro is legit. As a total newcomer to electronic sports, Aui's replacement was a surprise to me. I'm not much a sports person, but don't basketball players and other athletes get traded around teams more often than just summarily replaced? Are team Esports weird in that there are not really many other teams to trade with?

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Another great show. That intro is legit. As a total newcomer to electronic sports, Aui's replacement was a surprise to me. I'm not much a sports person, but don't basketball players and other athletes get traded around teams more often than just summarily replaced? Are team Esports weird in that there are not really many other teams to trade with?

In the bigger US sports, players are unionized employees that have collectively bargained with their respective league / team owners to establish rules for that sort of thing. Dota has none of that organizational framework.

In this particular instance, Evil Geniuses is a subsidiary of twitch / Amazon and Team Secret's ownership is unclear (maybe owned by the players, maybe owned by the son of a Turkish construction magnate, maybe both) but neither is a franchise of a league like the NBA or NFL that is able to establish guidelines for how players move between teams.

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Also the terms used in a traditional sport generally soften the blow regarding roster moves. The term "kicked" engenders negative feelings towards the player. In a more traditional sport a euphemism like "mutually agreed to part ways" or a softer term like "released" would be more likely to be used- and would thus not likely. It's all semantics, but it in general tends to lend an air of professionalism in the context of roster moves (covering up any sort of underlying ill-will) and generally keeps both parties from going down the rabbit hole of name calling/publicly rationalizing/etc. EG probably would have been better off just releasing a statement that they don't comment on the reason for player/personnel changes.

Aui shouldn't have whined about getting cut on twitter and EG definitely should've prepared something. The roster lock is adding more stress and drama to this year's post-ti shuffle.

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Puppey actually did an interview where he laid out the deal they have with the Turkish businessman. Basically he's a guy in his 40s that sees a lot of promise in e-sports, but didn't have any connections. So he helped subsidize Team Secret in exchange for access to important people in the scene so he can network. He's not an owner in any way.

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Rob I think I'm picking up what you're putting down, but I also think I disagree with you. Baseball is such a weird sport, in that everything is individualized. It was my first and still highest sports love, but man it's such a strange thing. Almost no other team disciplines can be measured the same way. The hitter in front of you doesn't have to be your friend. He doesn't have to communicate with you. If he hits the ball damn hard, and you do as well, you're both doing your job. If he hates you, or today's starting pitcher, he's still going to try to hit the ball as hard as he can, and make every defensive play.

I see LoMas especially as closer to a basketball team, or maybe specifically a football offensive line. If you have chemistry issues, they can maybe be overcome with overwhelming superior talent on the basketball court, but one bad egg can spoil the bunch. Doubly so for an offensive line. They (from the outside looking in) seem to be one of the closest knit groups in sports. Unlike baseball or basketball, so much of what they do is group-based training and communication. That's not to say there aren't team drills, but a basketball player can practice free throws for as long as they want to spur individualized improvement, where a lineman can't practice adjusting blocking assignments on their own.

I love this conversation, and these are great points. But to the basketball example, I'd submit the Lakers in the Kobe era. That guy is basically a locker-room terrorist, is awful to a lot of his teammates and few of them will ever express anything resembling affection for the guy. And yet...

But you might be on the money with the o-line example. I was a tackle -- though not a good one -- and the lineman really are a team within a team. And yeah, it's an insanely complicated role because a lot of times you're lining up against something you've never seen before, so everyone has about 5 seconds to adjust their blocking assignments and get on the same page. But there again, the line was a united front only because we kind of defined ourselves against the rest of the team. The "skill position" players. But it didn't mean we all had to get along. It was more just like family: hey, I don't much like this guy, but he's my brother and I'll always be there for him.

On the other hand, I talked to one manager of a Lord Management team and he told me that every player needs to be three things: a good player, a good employee, and a good friend. Having just two out of those three always causes problems. And because a lot of pro teams live together, the personal friction can be a lot more intense.

Esports, man. The parallels are there, but they're such a new and odd thing.

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I love this conversation, and these are great points. But to the basketball example, I'd submit the Lakers in the Kobe era. That guy is basically a locker-room terrorist, is awful to a lot of his teammates and few of them will ever express anything resembling affection for the guy. And yet...

But you might be on the money with the o-line example. I was a tackle -- though not a good one -- and the lineman really are a team within a team. And yeah, it's an insanely complicated role because a lot of times you're lining up against something you've never seen before, so everyone has about 5 seconds to adjust their blocking assignments and get on the same page. But there again, the line was a united front only because we kind of defined ourselves against the rest of the team. The "skill position" players. But it didn't mean we all had to get along. It was more just like family: hey, I don't much like this guy, but he's my brother and I'll always be there for him.

On the other hand, I talked to one manager of a Lord Management team and he told me that every player needs to be three things: a good player, a good employee, and a good friend. Having just two out of those three always causes problems. And because a lot of pro teams live together, the personal friction can be a lot more intense.

Esports, man. The parallels are there, but they're such a new and odd thing.

If I could return to a baseball analogy, though one of a fan, the SF Giants have sold themselves on their manager's loyalty and on interesting, friendly personalities. And they've won 3 out of the last 5 world series.

I'm not necessarily saying that it's the only way or the best way to win, but it sure as hell makes it fun to follow. I guess as E-Sports get bigger, we'll just end up with more examples of different ways to run a team, and I'll keep rooting for the Bruce Bochy's and Hunter Pences.

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If I could return to a baseball analogy, though one of a fan, the SF Giants have sold themselves on their manager's loyalty and on interesting, friendly personalities. And they've won 3 out of the last 5 world series.

I'm not necessarily saying that it's the only way or the best way to win, but it sure as hell makes it fun to follow. I guess as E-Sports get bigger, we'll just end up with more examples of different ways to run a team, and I'll keep rooting for the Bruce Bochy's and Hunter Pences.

That's backwards. They've won 3 out of 5 world series, SO they can sell themselves on a friendly manager and fun personalities. They've made some savvy veteran pickups for not a lot of money, and gotten the most out of some objectively poor contracts. Their manager is good behind the scenes, and he doesn't actively harm them in-game. They're also the beneficiaries of Even Year Bullshit. Right?

You win because you spend the right amounts of money in the best ways. You don't win because the manager is kind of adorable. That's why it's worth it for your team to have AUI, because even though I think he's a surly, boring 20 year old, he's a good DOTA player. After you win, you can jettison him, or you can go back around and paint him as having been a friendly, likable guy.

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IT also highlights something interesting about the esports pay structure. You're not really salaried in the same way a sports star would be. I believe most of their earnings come from winning tournaments. So as long as you're making plenty of money getting third place (and your sponsors are still relatively happy with your results) while living the dream pro-gamer life with your friends...is there much pressure to push yourself the extra mile to get 1st?

In Korea, the OSL/MSL individual leagues wasn't regarded as highly as the team Proleague, because I think the team leagues are better at promoting a brand compared to the individual leagues, and brands are where all the money is in Korean StarCraft. The emphasis has shifted more towards individual leagues when StarCraft 2 came around, I think because that's what Western audiences are more interested in (we have no affinity for Korean brands like KT Rolster or SKT T1), since we seem to favour rooting for individual stars.

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Hi people. The plugs on Idle Thumbs paid off, so now I'm joining in amongst this show as well. Agreed with everyone else that having the show notes posted here with links makes everything better. I was able to tab out and watch the SC2 game during your conversation about it so it made more sense to me.

On another note...

I actually don't play any of the games discussed in Esports Today. CSGO, Dota2, LOL or SC2. I played a bit of LOL in the beta and a few weeks of Dota2 a couple of years ago but decided to tap out vs the big knowledge wall that confronted me. Despite this, I still really enjoy watching Dota 2 as an esport as long as there is a good commentator along for the ride. I'm secretly hoping that this show gets me more into spectating some of these other games, particularly SC2 or LoL.